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IFLY tips

Plainpalais flea market

The perfect spot to get a good bargain, buy some wonderful antiques or bric-a-brac is the flea market at Plaine de Plainpalais. This market is held every Wednesday and Saturday from 9.30 to 4 pm. On Tuesday and Thursdays there’s a vegetable market and on Sunday there’s a huge market with bric-a-brac, clothes, vegetables and much more. The market is around the Plaine de Plainpalais in the heart of the old city centre. The place can be reached by many tramlines, stop Plainpalais.

Discovering the lake

Some nearby wonderful villages around the Geneva Lake are Nyon (on the Swiss side of the lake) and Yvoire (on the French side). You can book a tour by car, but much nicer is to do it by train and boat. From Geneva Cornavin train station you can take a train to Nyon. This will take approximately fifteen minutes. The train costs CHF 8,60 for one way. This village lies on the shores of Lac Leman. The town is best known for the headquarters of UEFA, but has a lot more to offer. There are many nice hotels and restaurants, Museum Leman and the white castle. From Nyon you can take a boat to Yvoire. The boat ride is only 20 minutes. The price for the boat is CHF 20,20 for a return. There are about fifteen crossings per day. A timetable can be downloaded here. Yvoire is a wonderful flowered medieval village. It is ranked as one of the International Laureates of Floral Decorations and is a member of the Association of Most Beautiful Villages of France. After a walk and a lunch you can take a boat back to Nyon and return to Geneva.

Telepherique du Saleve

If you like to have a great view at Geneva and its surroundings, you should go up with Le Telepherique du Saleve. This is a cable car outside Geneva that brings you to an altitude of 1100 metres is less than 5 minutes. The cable car is in operation year round during daytime. More information on the times can be found here. A round trip costs 10,70 Euro. Yes Euro again, as the cable car is located in France, but Swiss Francs are accepted as well.You can go there by bus from Geneva. From the Cornavin Station you can take TPG bus 8 to stop Verier Douane. From that stop it’s only a few minutes walk to the cable car.

Alpys' wings

A travel tip you will find at IFLYtheworld.com can have something in common with flying of course. Alpys’ Wings is a great way to discover the mountains. You can take an ordinary tour to Chamonix in France, or you can take a small plane. With Alpybus, you can arrange your transportation from Geneva to Chamonix and they can arrange your flight as well. This exclusive tour will simply take your breath away as you fly over snow capped peaks, glaciers and rolling hills, which form the famous Swiss Alps. You can fly over Interlaken, the Jungfrau Mountain range or even Zermatt and the Matterhorn. We can tell you, this trip is quite an expensive tip and prices are according to service. It depends on what you want to see and how long you want your trip.

Vineyards in Valais

Swiss wines may not be the most famous wines in the world, but they do produce a lot of good wines. If you like to see the vineyards and try the wines you should make a day trip to Valais. Best way to travel in Switzerland is by train and from Geneva you can easily take a train to Sierre. This ride will be approximately two hours.Valais is a one of the drier parts of Switzerland in its central Rhône valley. The wine industry of the region is the largest in Switzerland (40 percent). About half of the vineyards are devoted to the production of white wines. We can advise you some vineyards, but it depends completely on your likes. At this website you can find many vineyards. Just fill in region: Valais, and City: Sierre. You can even search the vineyards by the type of wine. Most of the vineyards can easily be reached by taxi from Sierre train station.

Bathing in the centre of Geneva

In summer, and even in autumn when the temperature of Lake Geneva, or Lac Leman as its called officially, is still comfortable, it’s great to go sunbathing or swimming in the lake. Sauna des Bains is located in the heart of the bay of Lac Leman at Jetee des Paquis.You can have a picnic at or enjoy the sun while enjoying the view on the old city, Jet d’eau, the famous fountain of Geneva and, if the sky is clear, the mountains behind Geneva with eternal snow. Even in winter it’s a great place to walk around.Besides the options of swimming and sunbathing they have a restaurant and a sauna as well. There’s also a children’s playground and a place where you can play ‘jeu de boules’. The sauna is open every day from 9 am to 9.30 pm. At Tuesdays it’s open only for women. A ticket for sauna cost CHF 17. Entrance to the pier is free, unless there’s some kind of special event. More information (if you understand French) can be found here.

Watch making museum

If you say Geneva, you say high quality, famous and expensive watches. Raymond Weil, Frederique Constant, Franck Muller and of course Patek Philippe are famous watch making brands. For this last mentioned brand is a museum in Geneva, the Patek Philippe Museum, located at Rue des Vieux-Grenadiers 7 just behind Plaine de Plainpalais. You will see a collection of antique watches and the history of watch making. The museum is open from Tuesday to Friday from 2 pm to 6 pm and on Saturday from 10 am to 6 pm. The entrance fee is CHF 10.

Free boat tour

Of course you have to make a boat tour on Lac Leman. There are several options with the boats of CGN, departing from Geneva Mont-Blanc. The tours vary from one hour to a full day. All options can be seen here. These are paid tours, but you can make a free tour as well. If you have a Hotel in Geneva, you pay city tax and for that the hotel receptionist has to give you a free transportation card. This card is valid in all trams, busses and the train to the airport. The card also gives you the right to travel on the Unireso public transportation boats in the harbour. At Quai du Mont-Blanc in front of hotel Kempinski the boats depart. If you board from pier 3-4 and stay in the boat till you are back at the same pier, you will have a free one-hour boat tour. Just show your public transportation card to the boatman.

Free bikes

Geneva is a very green city and tries to promote many different ways of transportation other then a car. Genèveroule is an association that promotes the use of bikes in Geneva by offering free bike loan and bike rentals. Every year in summer you can use a free bike in Geneva. This is another great way to discover the city. It’s called Velo Libre, which means free bike. The service is open each day from beginning of May until the end of October. You can borrow a city bike for free for a period of four hours. The bicycles can be found at six different stations: Montbrillant, Terrassière, Bain des Pâquis, Place du Rhône, Plaine de Plainpalais and Carouge (Fontaines). To borrow a city bike for the day free of charge for a period of up to 4 hours you will need to show an ID card, leave a deposit of CHF 20 and accept the general conditions. It is possible to conclude theft insurance.After the first four hours you have to pay CHF 2 per hour. You can reserve your rental bikes in advance through the intermediary of the web site. Check out the online reservation section to make your reservations.

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Language of the world

Of course you like to speak a few words of the local language onboard the plane or at your destination. Here you find some simple basics of the main language spoken in Geneva.